We all love sunny days in Saint Gervais right…? but during the last major storm that hit the Mont Blanc range some gnarly mountain terror went down.

Bruno Marcelo is the shepherd of this 130 hectare farm that got so badly terrorized.  When the storm hit Bruno tells the story of how difficult it was to count all the sheep in the fog and driving rain.  When he returned after the storm had settled, he was shocked to find 35 sheep & lambs dead with their throats opened.  He had a closed barn with high fences that was destroyed, which in his opinion, is due to the distressed sheep trying to gain access during the attack or by the wolves trying to get in.

But don’t worry, although wolves are still rare in this region they are becoming more of a threat to these farmers.  In September, we will see how many wolves are earmarked for the hunting quota in the Haute Savoie.  Wolves have been spotted all over the Mont Blanc range mainly traversing over from Italy where they were reintroduced a few years ago.

This does beg the question if the farmers should look back to there for-fathers techniques, in most parts of Europe with Wolves & Bears all live stock is guarded by “Patou” which are extremely large dogs which are bread from birth with livestock in order to create an unbreakable relationship.  These still exist in Chamonix but are far and few between, the dogs are up to 120kilos and wear a studded metal collar to protect they’re throats.  The best example is in Romania where they have the biggest population of brown bears in Europe, three guardian dogs can fight off most natural threats known to man which makes them indispensable.